Harry Potter and the Days After
by RowanHartstring1
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, Harry Potter must help pick up the pieces of his obliterated world. Starting at Hogwarts, he must first begin to tackle his own nightmares...


Harry Potter

And

The Days After

Chapter 1. Saying Goodbye.

Blurring, flashing lights. Screams from all directions. Rubble and debris showering down. Voldemort's face loomed closer. He span around looking for help, pleading desperately for it all to stop. It did. With a yelp and a ruffle of bedclothes, Harry Potter sprang up from his sweat soaked bed in Gryffindor tower. He had been dreaming vividly of the events which had come to a head little over five hours ago. Shaking slightly, he found his way to the window. His rapid breathe cast a mist on the cold, grimy glass.. Though being mid-may, the coolness only found amidst an invasion of dementors was stretched across the tarnished grounds of Hogwarts. He knew they, of all things, would linger; So much death, so much loss and heartbreak. Of course they'd be back. He couldn't see any from the high tower window, but he could feel them. Perhaps they were patrolling the desolate corridors.

To his surprise, he found his freshly laundered clothes and bag at the end of his bed. The Hogwarts house elves were clearly back to business as usual. But what was usual now? Surely Hogwarts wouldn't stay open? It must take years to rebuild the damage caused by the devastating battle that had occurred? Harry looked around. He'd forgotten Ron had been in the dormitory too. He wasn't there. His bed looked unused, yet he saw Ron fall asleep in it. Harry dressed and, after checking his bag and pocketing his newly fixed wand, left the dormitory. A babble of chatter could be heard from the chilly staircase. Hastening down, Harry reached the bottom, opened the door and was almost deafened. A blast of cheers and applause hit him squarely in the face. Ron and Hermione were front and centre, smiling cheerily and holding hands. Harry joined them as the noise died down slowly to a low rumble of chatter. Most of the crowd were faces he didn't recognise. There was the odd Gryffindor housemate, like Neville Longbottom and Dean Thomas, yet most were complete strangers.

"You had me worried," Harry said to Ron, "how long have you been up?"

"About half an hour," Ron replied, "I'm surprised I didn't wake you. I was so hungry my stomach was yelling at me!"

Hermione made a noise that sounded like a stifled 'typical'.

"Speaking of, there's tonnes of food over by the window. House elves have gone seriously all out. You'd think we'd just won a war or something." Ron chuckled to himself. Hermione's face definitely said 'typical' this time.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, tentatively, "Ron said you were dreaming the minute dropped off."

Harry hesitated. Something like past experience made him not want to share his nightmare with them. He could almost here Hermione saying 'you need to speak to someone'. The only person who could help with these kind of nightmares charged by the hour.

"I'm okay," he said quietly, "just tired. And oddly restless. I feel like there's something else to do. I dunno, it's… Its…"

"Like its all over and yet all about to start," Hermione finished his sentence, "I know, that's how we felt too."

The two exchanged a look of mutual pain. The wounds they bore upon their skin were bound to be lasting; scars to mark the time the wizarding world rose up against total darkness, and won. Hermione had a deep cut on her left cheek and several scratches on her hands. Ron had a cut running the length of his right forearm and small scratches dotted all over his face. These would eventually scar and be less noticeable. But the scars they held emotionally, they would be eternal. Harry was used to emotional torture. His life had been nothing but. However, neither of them would have experienced anything to this magnitude. Yes they'd battled, they'd been tortured and lost friends they held dear, but nothing on the scale of what had unfolded that day.

"Go and get some food," Ron suggested, "when you're done we'll go down to the great hall. Kingsley is meant to be giving a speech around 4 so they'll be setting up."

"A speech?" Harry asked, "what about?"

"Ministry stuff, the end of dark times, what happens now. That kind of stuff, I think"

It took a while to eat. Harry hadn't realised how hungry he was and as he helped himself to several sandwiches and some pork pie, he was mobbed by virtually the entire common room. He shook hands over and over again with witch after wizard after witch, all wishing to congratulate him, tell him how proud they were of him and how they hoped he'd know that nobody would ever owe him more than they. After what felt like hours, and several attempts to shake a very old and frail looking Doris Crockford, he finished his plate and joined the line now exiting the common room.

"Why we're all these people in here?" Harry asked, wearily.

"For you, obviously" Hermione grinned, "they've already coined you a new name. You're now The Man Who Won."

"Highly original'" Ron teased, "personally, I'd have thought something like 'the man who saved the entire wizarding race and took out several dark bastards' would have suited better."

Harry couldn't help himself grinning, as they climbed through the portrait hole, chided by the Fat Lady as they went.

"Out of the way please," she cried to the corridor, which was full of the throng of many many wizards and witches, "the hero's are coming through!"

All heads turned towards Harry, Ron and Hermione and they were treated to a further roar of triumph and applause. Hands stretched out to him once more and, walking a little quicker as they went, he shook each briefly. Finding it all increasingly irritating, Harry dashed out of the long corridor with the other two in toe. Down a flight of battered stone steps, they found a deserted area which Harry knew had a few hidden shortcuts down to the great hall. He pulled them into one behind a tapestry depicting a grisly beheading and stopped.

"Harry, what's wrong?" Hermione gasped, clutching a stitch in her side.

Harry panted a little too, but not from over exertion. He was freaking out.

"I can't.. I can't deal with.. With all that." He heaved.

"With what, mate?" Ron asked.

Harry's head was beginning to ache. As he stood their panting, images flashed over in his mind. Images of the dead, the lifeless. Remus and Tonks, Fred Weasley and little Colin Creevey. It was so much to bare so soon after it had happened. He doubted that the last had passed away. There would be more to come. More people he couldn't save, yet that he had tried so desperately to spare.

"I.. I feel.." Harry started, avoiding their gaze, " I feel like it's just not over."

Hermione grabbed his hand. She forced him to look her in the eye. She didn't need to say a word, for Harry knew what she was saying. 'I feel that too'.

"I can hear more coming along," Ron muttered, "we should move."

"Deep breaths, Harry." Hermione said reassuringly.

Harry mastered himself just in time. As they exited the curtain at the bottom of the sloped passage they were in, they found themselves just around the corner from the great hall, one staircase up. The babble of noise was more subdued here. No whoops or roars of triumph. It was much more solemn. Though initially Harry felt calmed by this, as they ventured down the stairs into the entrance hall, he found it shook him deeper. He wasn't prepared for what he saw, either.

The rubble and ruins that had been strewn across the marble floors was gone. Some of it appeared to have returned to its former place and some of the walls looked untouched, as though as new. But great scratches, craters of missing mortar and solid flag stone were chipped out here and there. It was an odd sight to see. Many of the ruined portraits were gone, yet others had been spread out and were sharing their frames with occupants of the ruined. One even had a heavily bandaged mummy and a vampire in it, where Harry knew neither had been in the same picture before. As they ventured deeper he saw the battered front doors had been draped in both black and Hogwarts crest banners. They hung from the ceiling and from the entrance to the great hall too, unmoving in the stillness of the night. Hogwarts was in mourning.

As they emerged in full view of the gathering crowd, silence fell. Every eye was upon them. He caught the odd watery smile from onlookers which he failed to return. His head was buzzing with activity. He saw faces he knew well, faces which he could connect with the dead. It made him feel sick. The three of them walked towards the doors of the great hall, the crowd parting to allow them through. The hall itself had been laid out with row upon row of benches facing the raised plinth upon which the Hogwarts staff usually dined. Instead of tables however, the plinth hosted its own rows of chairs, at the centre of which stood the throne like seat usually occupied by the late and great Albus Dumbledore. As they crossed the hall, wondering where to go, they were stopped by a friendly face emerging from a chamber off the hall. Kingsley Shacklebolt; tall, dark and demure, waved the three over to him. He too bore visible signs of battle. His bald head was littered with grazes and a small chunk of his chin appeared to have been cursed off. It did nothing to soften his appearance, yet like so many of Harry's closest friends, he knew looks could never truly display a persons true nature.

"Harry, my friend," Kingsley said, his deep soothing voice beckoning him, "well done. So very well done. Albus would have been so very proud, you know."

"Thanks, Kingsley," he gulped, shaking his outstretched hand firmly, "how are you?"

"I'm.. Okay" he waved his hand at the incoming crowd at the door, "Here, you three are to sit with us."

"On the plinth?" Hermione said, startled.

"Of course!" Kingsley responded heartily, "where else will the hero's be?"

Harry felt his heart flutter again. This was more nerves than he could take. Both Ron and Hermione showed looks that said the same.

"We'll be fine down here," Ron said, gesturing to the pews facing upwards, "we don't need…"

"You realise most of these people here this evening have stayed for you three?" Kingsley asked rhetorically. "They want to share respect and gratitude to you all."

"Really Kingsley, it's not necessary" Harry said, a note of pleading in his tired, cracking voice.

But it was too late. As the throng of witches and wizards began to fill the pews, the three of them were whisked up onto the plinth and directed into seats two spots down from Dumbledore's throne. The noise began to creep back in as Harry nervously looked around at all the faces he could see. Hermione and Ron were sat on his right, with a few ministry wizards occupying the seats next to them. To his left, was a wizard he had never met and beside him, just about to be seated was Arthur Weasley. Ron had spotted him too but before he could try to catch his eye, the plinth became swamped with teaching staff, including professors McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout and a rather dishevelled looking professor Slughorn, who gave Harry a washed out wave of a hand as he sat down on the row of seats behind Harry's. The pews facing up were filling fast. Harry could tell that many of those in the hall had stayed just for the speech. Some were walking like zombies, hardly able to keep their eyes open after such a long and painful 24 hours, yet here they were.

In the front row, Harry caught his first glimpse of a girl he had longed to see since he awoke from his short sleep in Gryffindor tower; Ginny Weasley. Arm in arm with her mother, she sat down. Her eyes roamed the seats in front of her until she saw him. Their eyes connected over the short yet painfully long distance they sat from one another. Harry felt his troubles ease. He was lost in her gaze, remembering the long summer walks they had shared by the lake just over a year ago. The happiness they had felt together, the gentleness of her touch, the spark of her fiery kisses, all flooded his senses. He almost hadn't realised the silence that had swept into the hall once more. It was Kingsley's deep tone that grudgingly brought him back to the world.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for joining us this evening. Today, we both celebrate our victory over evil and mourn the loss of the good and great. Today is for us to join forces once more, United in grief and pride, saying goodbye to the lost souls who fought so very valiantly right until the last. May we bow our heads in a moment of silence, as I read out the names of those who perished in the fight for our freedom."

Harry had not been ready for this. He suspected it may happen, but even so... It caught him off guard. He returned his gaze to his knees as Kingsley solemnly read through a list of some 60 names. He recognised too many along the way. Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Lupin, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Lavender Brown, Professor Sinistra, Fred Weasley, Ernie MacMillan... On and on it went. Harry barely took much of it in. He chanced a glance at Hermione and wasn't surprised to see her dissolved into silent tears. Ron's eyes were swimming too. He couldn't stand it. He looked out to the gathered people and was shocked and angered to see a well manicured Rita Skeeter stood with her photographer at the right side of the pews, her acid green quill flying across an independently floating notepad. He heard the click of the camera and felt a flash of light glance across his cheek. His blood was boiling. Had it not been for Kingsley's moving tributes, he'd have took flight at her. He wanted nothing more than to yell and scream at her. The very nerve of her, continuing life as though the war had been an exquisite story to report on, like the lives lost were all an extra galleon here and there.

Kingsley finished his roll call and the hall lapsed into silence once again. There was no sound whatsoever to be heard. Even the birds seemed to have fell silent in respect. Harry felt the knot inside his stomach loosen somewhat. Was it the outpouring of communal grief that eased his discomfort? Or was he finally realising that he had no cause to be guilty? They had fought and died, yes for his cause. But more than that, like Kingsley had said, it was for their freedom. Once again, faces flittered across Harry's mind, faces of all those who had died, not just tonight, but since it all began. Cedric Diggory was the first pertinent death to Harry. He felt it now as rawly as he did at the time. Albus Dumbledore, his once great friend and mentor, killed not by Severus Snape's evil, but by his compassion. Mercy was the last thing Dumbledore experienced. Now Harry understood this, he found his heart lightened even more. Even as he felt it, tears began to well. Harry would finally succumb to the realist of emotions he knew. As the hot sting seeped from under his tightly clenched eyelids, his shoulders shook uncontrollably.

Kingsley had stood once more. Harry missed what he was saying. He felt Hermione place a soothing hand on his back as he tried to regain composure. It wasn't Hermione, however, that broke his reverie. It was a sudden burst of heartfelt Phoenix song. Every head in the great hall span around in search for the source of this comforting lament. A sudden burst of flame in the centre of the hall caused up roar. From the flames a Phoenix as large as a swan and as peaceful as a dove appeared. It soared once around the hall before descending towards Harry. It's wings brushed Harry's untidy hair as it tucked them away and sat upon his knees. It's face rubbed against Harry's. He knew, Fawkes had returned. He had chosen a new master.

"Hello again, Fawkes," Harry muttered to him, "I've missed you."

The Phoenix gave its loudest yet burst of song. The waves of sound seemed to soften the features of everyone around him. Scars were melting away, tiredness became alert, heartache became comfort. He glanced out of the newly repaired Windows. The chilly, dense mist of earlier had gone. The grounds and castle were bathed in early summer sunshine. The dementors had been driven out. Was this Fawkes' doing? Had his return sent them spiralling away? Harry thought so. He felt a wave of warmth wash over him. Like he had been cleansed. A few more moments passed before Kingsley continued his speech. Harry was now listening intently, whilst casually stroking a cooing Fawkes.

"As I was saying, the rebuilding of our community must start from the top. Over the coming days we will flush out the remnants of corruption that linger in the ministry. I have elected the following in our senior roles to do this."

He read out a second list of names. Most of them Harry did not know, but each would be responsible for various departments within the ministry. He did, however join the Weasleys in celebrating loudly Arthur's promotion to Deputy Minister for Magic. He looked highly sheepish as the crowd cheered his name. It came as no surprise that Percy Weasley was not named in any of the top official jobs.

"And finally, " he called to the crowd, "the rebuild of Hogwarts. Much has already been started. There are, of course, areas damaged by the darkest of magic. These will take longer to repair. But I promise, Hogwarts will be open again this September. Professor McGonagall will be taking her rightful place as head teacher. May we all give her the support and respect she deserves." Further cheering greeted this. The Hogwarts staff were loudest of them all. It was, of course, the right decision. Nobody of the staff had fought harder to keep them safe but she. Like a true knight, she had lead the charge to defend her home and livelihood. He felt a renewed warmth to her thinking of how much she had stood to lose, as he had too. Fawkes cooed again.

The meeting was adjourned shortly afterwards. It had been decided that the bodies of those who had perished would be buried on the outskirts of the forest, by the lake. There, they would accompany Dumbledore. The bodies of the Death Eaters, Voldermort and the many many creatures who had fought the losing cause would be taken into the Forbidden Forest. Unless claimed by family, there they would stay, awaiting nature to dispose of them. The thought unsettled Harry. He didn't like the undignified nature of it, despite the horror of their actions. They may have made the wrong choices, but they were still someone's son, daughter, mother or father. However, he could understand the feeling of others. They were responsible for the losses they had suffered. They had killed, tortured and damaged beyond repair.

As the hall slowly emptied, Hogwarts began to fall quieter. Now that it was all over, their was little reason for people to stay. Harry and the others remained on the plinth, some chatting, some deep in damaged thought. A rushing sound alerted them all to the arrival of the Hogwarts ghosts. Many of them looked as weary as the living souls, such as The Grey Lady. Harry wondered if the other ghosts had heard of how much she knew of the evenings events, of how involved her lineage had been.

"Harry!" Cried Nearly Headless Nick, "Well done sir! BLOODY WELL DONE! How are you feeling?"

"Hello Nick, "Harry replied a little wearily, "I'm okay thanks. Yourself?"

"I'm tired, Harry. Tired! I haven't been tired in over 500 years! It's sad, of course, but when so much death occurs in one place, it does keep an honest ghost busy."

He wagged a ghostly finger affectionately at Fawkes. He seemed to be really enjoying the thought of mass death, which shocked Harry deeply.

"What do you mean, busy?" He asked.

"Ah, well. In instances such as these we ghosts get a rare opportunity to visit what I call, the afterlife. It's not, of course. It's sort of a midway. Between on and lingering. With so many souls perishing, it pulls us back in. There, we can help those who have died to decide what they want to do. Do they wish to go into the afterlife? Or remain a pale imitation like ourselves."

"That's fascinating," called Hermione, who had joined Harry, "I couldn't even comprehend making that choice."

"Did anyone chose to stay?" Harry asked. He was sure none would but felt a false glimmer of hope. He longed to see Remus, Fred or Tonks again. He was wrong.

As Nearly Headless Nick glided off to the side, he waived a hand behind him. Harry descended again, into uncontrollable tears. He wasn't the only one. Of the thirty or so people still in the hall, all had spotted the latest additions to the Hogwarts ghosts. All Of the living were crying, as were the newest of the dead. Floating eerily and pale, heavily bloodstained with gory wounds, Colin Creevey, Lavender Brown and a short 6th year Harry knew as Derren Victor emerged. The three looked simply petrified.


End file.
